New York Yankees Editorial: Robinson Cano Back to the New York Yankees? Can It Happen?

The curious case of Robinson Cano and the Seattle Mariners has just gotten a whole lot interesting.

Prior to the 2015 season, the Seattle Mariners were picked by many fans, baseball insiders and sport analysts to run away with the AL West and compete for the World Series.

They added Nelson Cruz, J.A. Happ and Justin Ruggiano to a core consisting of Felix Hernandez, Kyle Seager and of course ex-Yankee second baseman Robinson Cano. They even went out and acquired Mark Trumbo from the Arizona Diamondbacks earlier in the summer to bolster their lineup even more.

Fast forward to the last weekend in August, and the Seattle Mariners now find themselves in fourth place of the AL West at 60-69, trailing the division leading Houston Astros by 11.5 games and 7.5 games back of the AL Wild Card race.

Though one might argue that they can still make a run and clinch a wild card berth, it seems as if the Mariners have already thrown in the white towel, especially when the club announced that they fired long-time general manager Jack Zduriencik on Friday afternoon literally one year to the exact date that he was rewarded a pretty lucrative contract extension.

While the Mariners don’t plan on adding a full-time general manager until the baseball winter meetings, it’s obvious that their first order of business is cleaning up the $102.2 million dollars in guaranteed money owed to hefty contracts left behind by Zduriencik.

One trade candidate is the $240 million dollar man Robinson Cano.

Might he be traded back to the Yankees? As crazy as it might sound, I think it’s actually possible.

Cano is owed $192 million through 2023, and if there’s one team in baseball the can afford to take on that contract it’s the New York Yankees. They have a ton of money coming off the books in the near future with the hefty contracts of CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and Carlos Beltran all set to expire within the next two years which would potentially give them some sort of flexibility in taking on Cano’s cap hit.

Also, the best and closest major league ready second base prospect in the Yankees farm system is Rob Refsnyder, who certainly has some pop, but still needs a ton of work on the defensive side of the diamond. When the time comes to find Stephen Drew‘s replacement this winter, the Yankees will have to decide on either bringing up Refsnyder as a defensive liability or looking elsewhere to acquire second base help for the 2016 season and beyond. Should they decide on bringing back Cano, maybe they can work a package that features Refsnyder and other minor league prospects in exchange for their former second baseman.

Taking Cano off the Mariners hands would offer them significant financial flexibility and would allow them to add a slew of minor league talent, two things they desperately need after the mess that Zduriencik left behind.

Cano is 33-years old now and struggling with the dimensions of Safeco Field is the least of his worries. Ever since signing with the Mariners in 2014, off-field issues have been arising one at a time for the Roc Nation Client, including complains of him being unhappy with the Mariners organization.

Any how, this is all just speculation. Theres still a good chance that the Mariners decide to keep Cano and try to build him around him. After all he is a six-time All-Star and this year he eclipsed 11-straight seasons in which he’s recorded 30 or more doubles. He isn’t posting the same numbers he did in Pinstripes, but he’s still a super star.

It’s certainly going to be interesting to see how this whole story unfolds, but for now Cano is still a Mariner, we’ll just leave it at that.

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